CHRISTMAS IN CAMP AT KADDAI 355 



tended at Maifoni owing to Jose's falling ill with dysentery. 

 Besides these delays, a few more days were lost in going off 

 the road to have a brush with the Tubus, but I will keep 

 the account of this over till another chapter. 



At Gashagar, a Mobbur village, the chief ran away on 

 our approach, for he was suffering from a guilty conscience, 

 as was afterwards revealed. One of my " boys," on going 

 into the bush to cut wood, found a man chained up there in 

 stocks. He had been left starving for ten days and was in a 

 pitiful condition from exhaustion and exposure. His brother 

 soon afterwards came up and explained the unhappy situa- 

 tion. It transpired that the rascally king was trying to 

 extort cattle from the brother who was free as the price of 

 the release of the brother in bondage ; but though the free 

 man had cattle and to spare, it did not appear from his 

 manner to us that he had intended miking the sacrifice. 

 Jose cooked some bovril for the poor released wretch, and 

 when he had recovered a little we put him on a bullock and 

 carried him on to the next village. There were other signs 

 of the King of Gashagar's maladministration, for the village 

 was very deserted, most of the natives having gone over to 

 the French side of the river to escape his extortions. While 

 in the neighbourhood of Yo I saw another case of misrule. 

 The Lowan of Kowa came bearing a spurious order, pur- 

 porting to be from the Shehu of Kukawa representing the 

 British Government, and with this and by forcing the natives 

 to swear on the Koran that they would come in to him the 

 next day and pay a tax of a dollar per head, he succeeded in 

 collecting for himself the nice little sum of 500 dollars. On 

 haaring of this, I at once sent for the Kachella of Yo and the 



